


Pavor Nocturnus

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: M/M, Murder, Rape, sleep paralysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:02:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rob tells people he has nightmares, but that doesn't even begin to cover it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pavor Nocturnus

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dreaming about you  
> In a pool of your own blood

1.

He dies every night in his sleep.

Nightmares, he told people. But that didn’t even begin to cover it.

He tells Mike he has no idea what his dreams are about, tells him all he remembers is the fear and the weight of the emotion crushing him and suffocating him to the point where, even when he wakes up, he can’t move.

Sleep paralysis, they said. It’s all in your head.

He tried writing about it but the more he thought about it the harder it got to breathe. Darkness was everywhere and he stayed away from the closet, all doors were open as far as they could. He ran up the electricity bill by leaving on all of the lights. Took to carrying a flashlight everywhere with him...just in case.

The first time it happened he fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow, letting Mike’s soft breathing lull him. There was a man at the bottom of the bed. He wore a trench coat, which Rob thought strange because he was too hot to even pull the thin sheet over his body that night.

The man in the trench coat stared at Rob with white eyes. He had no pupils, no iris, just white. It was eerie and he willed himself to look away but then the man smiled, his lips curling back to reveal white, pointed teeth. The looked as if they’d be razor sharp and, when the man moved lightning fast to bite down on Rob’s neck, it turned out they were.

He died, then. Blood seeping slowly from the wounds on his neck and soaking the white cotton sheets around him. Mike sat up beside him and stared down into his eyes. Looked worried enough but did nothing to help. Couldn’t he see the blood? Couldn’t he see he was dying?

He couldn’t move. And Mike couldn’t care less. So he got up and left Rob there to drown in his own blood.

He woke up eventually to find no stains on the sheets, no blood. But in the dirty bathroom mirror his reflection stared back at him. His reflection tilted his head back to get a better look at the pale skin of his neck. And, in the mirror, his reflection’s neck was bleeding.

2.

Mike tells him it’s just a dream. Too much sugar before bed, too many late night movies. For a while Rob believes him and for a while the dreams stop.

But then they come back. It’s like his not believing in them made them angry and the dreams last longer than they ever had before. It’s not always the man in the trench coat, but he’s there most of the time. He oversees the whole thing, makes sure that the shadows that creep from the corners of the room or under the bed suffocate him slowly whilst he disembowels Mike in front of him.

He can’t move. The shadows crush down on him and his vision is blurred by a thick fog that makes it hard to breathe. But he can smell the blood and hear the screams easily. Mike’s shallow, panicked breaths and his whimpers of pain fill the air along with the smell of copper. And rot.

In the morning he wakes up with a cry tumbling from his lips, fumbles for his flashlight which he keeps under his pillow. Burrowing under the blankets he switches on the flashlight and lifts Mike’s shirt to run his fingers over the smooth, unbroken skin of his stomach.

The older man stirs slightly but doesn’t lift the covers. “Another dream?” He asks, his voice thick with the sleep he hasn’t shaken off yet.

Rob wants to tell him that it wasn’t a dream. Dreams are glittery and bright and happy. But he can’t speak. He shines the flashlight down his own shirt and stares down at the lines of bruises over his skin. Bruises from where the shadows crushed him, held him down.

Suddenly the sheets are too heavy for him and he’s suffocating. Pushes them off and sits back, shaking. “Turn on the light.”

Mike does, flicking the bedside switch and illuminating the whole room. “You okay? Robbie?”

He isn’t. But he just tells himself over and over that it was all a dream.

3.

One day he wakes up alone. The sheets behind him are pulled back and the bedroom door is ajar. He should have known Mike would tire of his endless fear some time. Nobody can live in terror all the time but Rob has no other choice.

In his dream the man with the trench coat had razor wire. He swung it above is head with a manic chant and brought it down across Rob’s outstretched arms like a whip. The pain was immediate and the young man screamed. But he had no voice so it was nothing more than a silent exhale into the darkness.

The razor wire whip cracked down across his flesh repeatedly until he passed out. For the first time in a long while he didn’t die and woke up with ease, sitting bolt-upright and breathing heavily.

He feels no relief from being left alive in his dream, because doesn’t have to spare his arms a glance to know that they’re shredded, flesh torn, flaps of it hanging loose over open wounds.

He feels no relief because beside him, where the sheets are pulled back, is a bloody hand print.

And it isn’t his.

4.

He kneels on the bed and shivers. It isn’t cold, nowhere near, yet he’s freezing cold. He misses Mike’s warm touches, his soft words and loving kisses.

They don’t talk any more. This morning Rob murmured “I love you,”

And all he got for his troubles was a sly smile; lips curling back to reveal white, pointed teeth that look like they’d be razor sharp.

And that night when Mike waits for Rob to slip into another nightmare before straddling his chest, dipping his head and ripping his throat out, it turns out that they are.


End file.
